OTTAWA -- The federal government boosted its bid Wednesday to claim millions of square kilometres of Arctic and Atlantic Ocean seabed.
Ottawa said it will double its spending on scientific research projects to $40 million over four years in an attempt to prove the North American continental shelf extends far beyond Canada's 200-nautical mile limit. If Canada is successful with that bid, it can make the legal claim that its jurisdiction ought to extend over an area that some say could contain billions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves.
Canada will double its spending on seabed research to enhance claims over disputed territories, such as Hans Island, which Canadian troops visited in 2005.
Canada has until 2013 to make a case to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that it ought to be granted jurisdiction over the extended continental shelf, off the northeast coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's high Arctic and in a wide crescent off Canada's east coast.
Canadian scientists believe the extended continental shelf could be as large as 1.75 million square kilometres, about the combined size of Canada's three prairie provinces.
"We will make our claim in 2013 and it will be based on sound science. The rules are very clear. They're not ambiguous," said Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.
Other polar countries, including the United States, Russia and Denmark, also are trying to prove their claim to some of the same area. The U.S. hopes to snag an extra 600,000 square kilometres off the coast of Alaska, an area that some U.S. researchers believe contains $1.3 trillion worth of oil and gas reserves.
The U.S. Geological Survey, in fact, believes that as much as one-quarter of the world's oil and gas reserves may be buried under the Arctic Ocean's floor.
In August last year, a Russian submarine planted that country's flag on the ocean floor under the North Pole, a gesture that was taken to be a symbol of Russia's aggressive stance towards extending its sovereignty in the Arctic. Russia also has boasted that, unlike Canada and some other polar countries, it has a fleet of heavy icebreakers that can operate year-round in all ice conditions.
But Lunn said the physical presence of one nation or another's assets will not be a factor under the UNCLOS system.
"You can have all the icebreakers you want and you can put all the flags on the ocean floor you want," said Lunn. "It's not going to help your claim. It's not going to make an iota worth of difference. It is based on sound rules."
BEGIN OPTIONAL END
The research projects announced Tuesday will follow earlier work that found:
*¬ Canada and Denmark each may have a claim to portions of the Lomonosov Ridge, a submarine mountain chain that extends to the northeast of Ellesmere Island.
*¬ Earlier seismic work done by Canadian scientists in the Beaufort Sea identified more sediments on the ocean floor than anticipated. These sediments are characteristics of Canada's continental shelf.
* A preliminary seismic survey off the coast of Nova Scotia suggested ocean floor sediments extend further offshore than anticipated.
"The science on this claim is going very, very well and we will have a claim that is very, very solid," said Lunn.
-- Canwest News Service
PREVIOUS
